


you filled a space in my heart only to tear it again

by seidesumei



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Family, Fluff and Angst, HabiPrayerCircle4Gold, Not Beta Read, Pain, Sad, cute lil children, harsh reality, in no way historically accurate, japan and spain are not exactly besties, javier is the kindest soul you've ever seen, knife shoes appreciation society, o no, set in Japan a long time ago, sorry dont kill me, yummy mochi, yummy onigiri, yuzuru cant make a triangle shape properly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:28:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seidesumei/pseuds/seidesumei
Summary: okay. let me explain. I wrote this,,,, so that Javi can get Gold at Europeans. So this is just tough love okay? <3WARNING: please read the tags before proceeding!Actual Summary: Yuzuru is just another being of the public eye. It's a beautiful spring day, and the blooms of sakura billow through the wind, but Yuzuru felt nothing more than the bile in his stomach flood his body.





	you filled a space in my heart only to tear it again

Yuzuru felt bile already rising in his stomach, standing in the meadows of a spring day in the courtyard of the town he called his home. The grass was green and plush, like little pillows carrying him as he walked, but even they couldn’t help him wield the dark clouds that hung over his shoulders. _Stand with your back straight_ , his mother would tell him when he was young, _if you hunch any longer, you’ll look like a camel for the rest of your life!_ She would poke him in the sides, and he’d squeal with laughter in a melody with hers, as they walked across the court to buy fresh vegetables for the week. It had been a beautiful April morning, just as the one today.

 

_How the tables have turned._

 

Yuzuru forced himself to look up at the gallow that stood before him. If he couldn’t look at it now, there was no way he would be able to get himself through the whole thing, and in every way, Yuzuru wanted to run and hide away, but _someone_ had to be there. For him.

 

Up front stood a woman and two young children, all Japanese, begging a man in front of the gallows on their knees. Her dress, Miki’s dress, floated in the wind as the chiffon danced together with the petals of the bloomed cherry blossoms, and it looked beautiful, had she not been kneeling on her knees in the moist dirt with tears on her face, pleads ripping out like sobs from her throat. The daughter and son stood within her tight grasp, wailing for their father. Yuzuru’s heart throbbed. He didn’t like the look, especially since the last he had seen Miki was with her smiling face, flowering like a night-blooming cereus under the light of the moon, watching as her two young children skipped up to Yuzuru’s door to deliver him their freshly pounded mochi cakes in the orange light of the sunset. Yuzuru could feel the same smile melt onto his own complexion, as he took a bite of the powdered treat and ruffled the childrens’ hair as he praised the taste profoundly, the squeals of delight still ringing in his ears.

 

He could still remember the first time he had seen Javier, on his way to Miki’s home to gift her family his attempt at fish onigiri, the small, savory rice balls more an unnamed shape than they were triangular. Before he could knock the door, a man emerged from behind the house, very clearly a _foreigner_ , and Yuzuru gasped. The man’s eyes widened, and before Yuzuru could say anything, he was pulled into the house and he was already being begged to keep his being here a secret, that _if they knew they would never spare his life_. Yuzuru had sworn his life to secrecy, and it had taken a few more minutes of tears and embraces for the family along with Miki and little Aiko and Takumi to enjoy the treat that Yuzuru had brought over. Javier, his name was, had made a big show of expressing how delicious he thought they were, and when he laughed along with the family, it almost reminded him of when he had his own.

 

Yuzuru wanted to chase the memories away, but they wouldn’t stay grounded as time itself felt suspended when he, _Javier_ , was pushed to step upon the front of the gallow. He had been shell shocked when he heard the news that a soldier had been walking by a house on the corner of the street when a _Spanish_ man had shown himself, walking towards the front of his home after he finished his garden work. _No amount of pleading from his wife or children had been enough to stop the soldiers from taking him by force and driving him off_ , he had heard people say. _Serves him right, the Spaniard should have never lain a foot on our country's soil._ When he showed up to the house on that night with newly made onigiri, messier than usual in his haste to make them but salmon nonetheless, after the family declared it their sole favorite, no one had answered the door. Trudging home, he ate the bites of rice alone with ghosts of laughter in his head, from Miki, Javi, their children, _his mother_ , _his father_ , all in his head. By the time he had swallowed the last bit, he was already stumbling to the bathroom, retching and throwing up into the toilet.

 

Now, all Yuzuru could hear was the cheers of the crowds as Javier stood before them, a mouthful of last words, but only a spoon scoop to be told. He was visibly trembling on the spot, black and blue bruises littering his face, and when he first forced his voice out, it was choked. “ _I just want to say…_ ” Javier had started. Gasps of disbelief had echoed through the crowds at the sound of the foreigner speaking Japanese. Through his peripheral vision, Yuzuru could see the disgust morphing onto the faces of those watching.

 

“I don’t have much to offer in this world. But I lived a life that I had always dreamed, with the sweetest lady I have ever known and my two blessed little children. They are my love, my life, and everything I have ever lived for.”

 

Javier’s gaze had never left his family, who was weeping convulsively, beautiful fabric now matted with dirt. Yuzuru’s tears slid down his cheeks, but before anyone could see them he wiped them away. _No. No. Javier doesn’t deserve this. His family doesn’t deserve this. His children...._

 

“I’m forever blessed to have had the family I call my own,” Javier stated, and Yuzuru’s breath hitched when the man’s gaze found his own. His eyes turned soft, a hint of understanding, a look of love, and a tear down his cheek with a small smile forming on his lips. “All I want is for them to-”

 

Javier’s voice was cut off with the bag that went of his head, and he was shoved over to the rope that hung from above where he stood. The booing of the crowd was loud, but even they couldn’t mask the pleads of Javier’s wife and children. “Otou-san! Aishteruyo! Ikanaide!” little Aiko had cried, and what was left of Yuzuru’s heart disintegrated. He tore his eyes away from the scene, he was a _wimp_ , and he walked away from the scene, not able to take any more. It didn’t change the fact that he would never have been far enough to avoid hearing the board go down and the sickening crack, elated cheers and anguished screams echoing through the air all the same. Yuzuru _ran_.

 

He had practically collapsed into his home, tumbling through his front door as he fell to his knees, heart wracking sobs tearing through the air around him. He was a man who loved his country, who had given his heart to the home he loved, but today, when he had seen the sacrifices that it took, it tore at his soul. Javier, a good man who loved his wife, who loved his children, who loved _him_ like he was a part of his family, whisked away as quickly as the passing of spring, like nothing about him had mattered at all. His wife, who would have to live with the knowledge that her husband would never come home from garden work again. His children, who would have to suffer coming home from school with no father to love them, to hug them and boast about their stellar exam scores. Yuzuru had remembered setting the table in their house with shouts of “ _tu eres el major!_ _mis queridos hijos mmmwah!_ ” mixed with the pealed laughters as Javier lifted his children into his arms, spinning them around the room and littering kisses on their cheeks like there was no tomorrow.

 

_But what could he do? He was only a commoner in the city, barely in his adult years without any parents to guide him through the ugly truths of life, left to turn the page without precaution and let the trauma take root in his heart._

 

He lay sprawled on the floor of his home, not caring about the dust that danced around on the ground from the gentle breeze of spring through his window. He could hear the shuffling of feet outside in their steps to home after the _show_ today, to return to their families where they would have dinner together and cherish their own privileged lives.

 

Yuzuru didn’t know if he could ever take another bite of his handmade onigiri. In fact, he wished he’d never known how to make them at all.


End file.
